


Dark Nights

by jollywriter



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Happy Ending, this is a partially canon compliant story mostly just cuz ANGST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 01:05:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12665118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollywriter/pseuds/jollywriter
Summary: Lena Luthor is struggling with mortality, her own heart, and doing the right thing and finds an unlikely ally in overcoming this.





	Dark Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Lena is STRUGGLING and mostly she's struggling with suicidal thoughts. please be warned and put your mental health above what you might encounter here. There's a happy ending but still.

There are some L-Corp tasks that continue to intrude on Lena while she runs CatCo. Lead poisoning in a small community that’s affecting children and hospitalizing them, for example.   
The journalist brought it first to her attention was on staff at CatCo. It was awful that Lena couldn’t remember the journalist’s name, but the discovery was too big and crowded out so many other thoughts.   
Lena looked at the report and tried to figure out what to do. Call hospitals, obviously, she’d make any and all treatment for anyone even remotely concerned about lead poisoning free and easily accessible.   
But was it enough?  
Lena rubbed at her eyes and tried to sort her thoughts out. It didn’t seem to work. Logic was crowded out with the sensation of pain.   
She’d hurt kids. Her machine had hurt kids. In trying to protect the planet, she was hurting its inhabitants.   
She knew it. Ever since the Daximites had been repelled she’d known something like this was coming. The other boot, the actual cost of the defense of Earth was just waiting to fall on her and paralyze her.   
And this was it. She’d been foolish enough to think that the thing that would topple her would be a direct attack. How arrogant of her! To think that the consequence for poorly defending earth would be something she’d pay personally. How foolish had it been for her to think that it’d affect her solely.   
Naivety, that was what it was. Lillian would be furious.   
That was worse than anything else she’d thought of tonight. She stood up and stuffed the report into her briefcase and went for the elevator.   
She got downstairs and into the car without encountering anyone else. Her driver, Martin, asked for instructions.   
She almost said home. Where was home? She’d upset so much in the recent weeks that she didn’t know where her haven was. Her penthouse? L-Corp? CatCo?   
None of the above.   
She sighed, and had a brief idea. She gave instructions, and he followed them swiftly but without circumstance. 

#

Kara’s apartment was quiet when she got there. She knocked twice, and waited. It was late, was Kara already asleep? Oh that’d be the worst, to look for comfort in her friend’s company only to rouse her from sleep.   
Lena turned to walk away when Kara’s door opened. Kara stood there in her comfy clothes and slippers. “Lena? What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing,” Lena screwed up a smile as a reflex. “Just wanted to, uh, see if you were up.”  
“For you, always.” Kara held the door open. “If I pour some wine will you give me an honest answer about what’s up?”  
Lena looked away. She was an excellent liar, it was a skill she’d picked up growing up under Lillian’s domineering gaze. “Am I that easy to read?” Lena asked.   
“No,” Kara smiled. “I’ve just had practice.”  
Lena stood inside Kara’s apartment while Kara closed the door and then crossed to the kitchen and dug around for some glasses and a bottle of wine.   
Lena shrugged her coat off and set her briefcase down near the door.   
“What’s bothering you?” Kara asked as she poured.   
Lena hesitated. She and Kara hadn’t talked much about the effects of defeating the Daxamites. The battle cost Kara personally and it was something Lena hadn’t brought up.   
But it looked unavoidable now. “I just wanted to give you a heads up.” Lena said. “Other papers are going to be publishing accusations that the lead barrier I put in the atmosphere to stop the invasion is poisoning people. Children, mostly.” Lena tried to keep a straight face but she began to shudder. There was so much shame and grief and sadness and anger that she didn’t know what to do with it. Her body had no way to process the information and so she just trembled, silently, and tried to drink her wine and regain her composure.   
“I don’t believe it.”  
“I got the report tonight.”  
“This is Edge, it has to be.” Kara said.   
“Kara, your faith in me is sweet but it’s bordering on foolish.”  
Kara angled her head slowly and betrayed no expression on her face. “What makes you say that?”  
Lena had both hands around the base of her glass. “What if they’re right?”  
Kara became very still, so still Lena felt the weight of her gaze even without looking up to meet her eyes.   
“They’re not,” Kara said slowly.   
“I’m a Luthor,” Lena said. “It was foolishness to think I could run away from that forever.”  
“No it wasn’t,” Kara said. “It’s a legacy you don’t belong to.”  
“I don’t get to opt into or out of what I’m measured against, Kara.”  
“That’s their damage, not yours!” Kara leaned towards her. “No one gets to decide your worth.”  
Lena met her eyes, “That’s what I love about you. You remain optimistic about people even in the face of facts.”  
“Public opinion doesn’t shape my opinion of you,” Kara whispered.   
“Maybe it should.”  
Kara crossed around the counter and embraced Lena. She didn’t fight, she let herself be held. “You can stay here tonight if you want,” Kara said. “I’ve got some comfy clothes so you don’t have to sleep in a pencil skirt.”  
Lena smiled against Kara’s shoulder. “I’d appreciate that.”  
For a heartbeat, Lena felt better. But the night is longer and the shadows of the heart longer still. 

#

It was after two when Lena opened her eyes again. She’d heard Kara snoring softly in her room and Lena laid on the couch staring at the ceiling. It was dark, faded lights danced over the ceiling where the illumination of the city flickered and skittered through the blinds.   
Sleep was a dream she couldn’t realize at this point. Lena sighed, and rolled onto her side, facing the couch. The best part was, it smelled like Kara. Everything did. A warm scent, comforting and soft.   
The downside was it smelled like Kara. Lena wondered how it’d be to snuggle up with Kara every night. Her arms around Kara’s waist and tucked up against her, folded to fit against that perfectly sculpted body.   
She felt guilty for even entertaining the thought. But the idea was so enticing! Lena wondered if Kara would hold her, instead.   
That thought sent shivers up Lena’s spine and she chastised herself. She had no business dreaming of Kara like that. And yet? It was something she wanted almost as much as she wanted—  
There was an abyss of thought and then a visceral reflex she couldn’t shake.   
She’d been staring down the barrel of a gun for so long it’d begun to blur together. No distinction between the events, and it played with her memory so that she felt like she was under the threat all the time.   
To an extent, she probably was.   
That didn’t make the next thought any nicer. There was quantifiable evidence that’d suggest the world would be a better place if she weren’t in it.   
Her first week at MIT, she’d been eager and diligent and dedicated and she’d tried as hard as she possibly could. Even amongst a class of brilliant standouts, she rose above them. It wasn’t a deliberate action, it was just a natural occurrence. She pushed harder, she studied harder, she wanted to learn more.   
Her first advanced mathematics professor, as a way to gauge the ability of his fresh class, set them to solve an insoluble problem. Lena did, she was the only one in the class to do so, and it’d earned her the immediate scorn of most of the other classmates. Most of their comments didn’t faze her, it was part and parcel for being her.   
But one of them got under her skin. “The world would be better with fewer Luthors in it.”  
That stuck with her for a long, long time. Longer than she’d really like to admit, especially considering it’d had a hand in devoting what kind of person she wanted to grow into.   
That day, however, she’d met someone else that’d distracted her from the cruelty thrown at her. One person had been fascinated by the fact she’d actually solved the problem. Samantha.   
Lena was grateful for Sam, actually. If she’d surrendered the command of her company to anyone else, she’d be worried about L-Corp surviving with its new vision intact.   
But with Sam at the helm? Lena figured L-Corp would thrive.   
James could run CatCo expertly and diligently. Long as he had the resources to keep Morgan Edge from getting his hands on it, things should be okay.   
Lillian would be disappointed. All the resources she’d spent trying to kill Lena and all it took was breaking her down emotionally. She’d be angry that she didn’t actually try to whittle her down first.   
Lena curled into herself. He was wrong, wasn’t he? The world wouldn’t be better without all Luthors, right? Just. Most of them.   
What was Lena to decide she had any cause to stay, though? Nothing held up in the face of gradually poisoning kids with lead. No deed was worth being hostile to innocent people even as a byproduct of defending others.   
Either protect everyone, or no one, but the security of others can’t come at the cost of the poisoning of some.   
She’d done it wrong. Defending earth against the Daxamites had been imperfect and now it was costing her.   
Lena wiped at her eyes. This was stupid. She needed rest, not to beat herself up. She couldn’t solve the problems she needed to solve as tired as she was.   
She took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind. She was mostly successful, except she had found herself calculating the odds on a particularly unpleasant problem.   
The more she looked at it, the more she turned the situations where she could have been killed over in her mind, the more she came to realize that there was something to the idea that she was worth more to the world if she weren’t in it.   
She got up from the couch, slowly. She didn’t want to disturb Kara, and even though she was still snoring, Lena knew her to be a light sleeper.   
She shrugged the hoodie off, left it on the couch. She’d change out of the pants when she got home, but she took her shoes and coat and briefcase and slipped as quietly from the apartment as she could.   
“Lena?” Kara aske, blonde hair askew, barely coherent with sleepiness.   
Lena swallowed hard, and turned slowly.   
“What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing,” Lena smiled. “Just restless. I want to try and catch up on some work.” Not exactly a lie.   
Kara hesitated. Lena hoped beyond everything that Kara wouldn’t ask her to stay. Her resolve was weak as it was, and if Kara asked her what was wrong once more, Lena didn’t know if she could hold out.   
“I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” Lena said.   
Kara didn’t look convinced. She crossed her arms over her chest and seemed small. “Okay.”  
Lena closed the door and divided her from Kara.   
She walked away quickly, wiping her eyes as she did. She called a traditional cab since she’d dismissed her limo and took it back to L-Corp tower. She wanted to finish up and Sam would be gone for the night.   
When she got to her penthouse office, Sam was still burning the midnight oil.   
Lena almost barged in, but she hesitated. Ruby was asleep on the couch, peaceful and quiet and utterly oblivious. Sam looked up, startled by Lena’s movement.   
“Did you need something?”  
Lena shook her head, “No, I’m sorry, it’s okay.”  
“Lena, what’s wrong?”   
Lena’s control was tenuous at best and she couldn’t hold on much longer. “Nothing at all, just stressed,” She gave an unconvincing laugh. “You know how it is.”  
“Can I do anything to help?”  
That stopped Lena. She took a moment, then said carefully, “Keep the spirit of the company alive? Please? L-Corp helps people. Don’t let anyone forget it.”  
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Sam left the office and stood close in front of Lena. “Lena, what’s wrong?”  
“I can’t explain it.”  
“You’re going to pieces,” Sam said. “Can you try to explain?”  
Lena shuddered, tears dripped from her eyes and her throat closed. It was hard to breathe, to cry, to do anything but stand there and choke on the emotion.   
Instead of explaining, Lena reached into her briefcase and handed her the report the journalist had brought her earlier tonight.   
“I saw that,” Sam said.   
“What?” Lena croaked.   
“Yeah, we got a toxicology report from Edge. He’s preparing to sue us for endangering the city and he sent over preliminary findings.”  
“That makes no sense.”  
“He’s a megalomaniac,” Sam shrugged. “It makes sense to me.”  
“What do you mean, he’s preparing to sue?”  
“He says the lead poisoning is because of your anti-Daxamite machine.”  
Lena didn’t know what to say. It was true, it was.   
“Except,” Sam tapped the file. “I looked into this. All the patients that have reported lead poisoning are within a one square mile area. And it’s not like it’d be an isolated event, okay, you put lead in the whole atmosphere.”  
“How much, though, how much would it take to kill people?”  
“One part per million, Lena, breathing regular city air is more toxic than what you did to it. Except it’s deadly to Daxamites, and that’s what counts, right?”  
Lena had no answer to that.   
“This is a bullshit case, okay, and whoever took it to you is trying to get your goat.” Sam handed back the file.   
Lena nodded slowly, not really understanding what Sam said. “Is that all that was bothering you?”  
“Sure,” Lena said. “I mean. Kids with lead poisoning and I built a machine that could theoretically do that to them. So. Stressed out a bit.”  
“I can only imagine,” Sam gestured to the big office behind her. “That’s got stresses of its own.”  
Lena nodded.   
“I don’t know how you did it,” Sam said. “I’ve only been here a few weeks and it’s already breaking my back.”  
“That’s because you’re a functional human being with a thriving social life,” Lena said. “First rule of being a CEO is to be a Goblin. No life, so the work doesn’t overwhelm you.”  
“And here I thought the secret was to being an immortal elf.”  
“Nope. Gotta be a gremlin or something.” Lena smiled and felt no better.   
Sam smiled. “Are you gonna be okay?”  
“Yeah. Gonna go home and get some rest.”  
“Now that’s a plan. I’m gonna wrap up and then go put the kiddo to bed.”  
“You shouldn’t burn the midnight oil here,” Lena said. “She’s more important than anything you’ll work on in that office.”  
“I know, but like you said. Poisoned kids is kind of an immediate crisis to respond to.”  
Lena nodded, and hitched up her briefcase. “Well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
“Okay.” Sam smiled. “Goodnight, Lena.”  
“Goodnight, Samantha.”  
She walked away before Sam could respond or ask any more questions. 

#

It wasn’t good, as far as Lena could tell, to say her goodbyes. It’d be more painful, the morning after, because she smiled and lied to all these people for her own emotional closure.   
To that end, she’d gone to the bar Kara and Alex frequented for a drink. Just one or two before she went home and wrapped up. She didn’t want her good booze, she wanted something course and ugly and rough.   
“This is my brooding spot,” Alex said as she walked over. “Can’t you buy your own brooding spot somewhere else?”  
Lena looked up as Alex leaned against the bar near her. Lena shrunk, and started to pick up her coat. “I’ll leave.”  
“Don’t worry about it,” Alex sighed, and sat down. “I’m sorry.”  
Lena didn’t get up but she wasn’t convinced to stay. “I shouldn’t have said that.”  
“You’re not wrong,” Lena said.   
“Yeah, but I shouldn’t say it.” Alex sighed and worked on her own drink. It came in a dense round glass with glass cubes in it.   
“What’s bothering you?” Lena asked. Given how much emotional turmoil Lena was in, it was easy to recognize in Alex.   
“Maggie left.”  
It took Lena longer than it should’ve to recognize what Alex meant.   
“Why?”  
“Irreconcilable differences,” Alex punctuated the words slowly. “Familial disputes.”  
Lena didn’t push. “I’m sorry.”  
“I want to have kids someday,” Lena said. “You know? I mean I don’t have my sister’s genetic goods but I think I’d be an okay mother, ya’ know?”  
“Considering how low the mom bar was set for me, I’m sure you’re gonna be brilliant.”  
Alex laughed at that and then tried to stop herself, “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh at how bad your mom was to you.”  
“Please laugh at it,” Lena begged. “It beats the pity I get. Or the willful ignorance.”  
“I can understand that,” Alex sighed. “I’m sorry she was awful.”  
“So am I.”  
“So what’s got you here?” Alex asked. She gestured to the mostly empty bar. No one else was paying attention to them. It wasn’t so much that they were being ignored as much as they just didn’t care to notice them.   
Lena sighed. She looked into her drink. “I’m wondering if the world would be better with fewer Luthors in it.”  
“If you want to kill your mom and brother, I can’t technically encourage you but you’ll find me hesitant to stop you.” Alex shrugged. “They’re the kind of malevolence that never quit. Someday we’re gonna have to reckon with them both, and that’s not going to be a good day.”  
“I know,” Lena sighed, and sipped at her drink. It tasted the way she imagined paint thinner did.   
But it was what she wanted, so she kept at it.   
It took Alex a moment before she said, “You don’t mean killing your family.”  
Lena shrugged minutely.   
Alex flicked her on the ear. It didn’t hurt but it surprised Lena and she flinched. “Ouch!”  
“That’s stupid and you shouldn’t do that.”  
“Says you.” That sounded petulant to Lena but she didn’t have the energy to try for something more cutting.   
“Okay lemme break this down for you, alright? You don’t fall into my jurisdiction, okay?”  
“I am distinctly aware of that.”  
“You know what does fall into my purview?”  
“Aliens?”  
“Exactly. Also my sister. Not connected but still.”  
“Alex,” Lena met her eyes. “I know.”  
Alex raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, what?”  
“I mean. I’ve suspected for a while but it’s not something I knew definitively.”  
“We should talk elsewhere.”  
“Are you renditioning me to a DEO blacksite?”  
“No, we’re going back to my place because the wine is free.”  
Lena nodded, and followed Alex home. They got back to her apartment, and Alex said, “You want red wine? Or red wine?”  
“I’ll take the red.”  
“You talk.”  
“About?”  
“Your suspicions.”  
“Kara is an awful liar,” Lena said. “So is Supergirl, but in the exact same way.”  
“Huh?”  
“They’re both unbelievably earnest.” Lena said. “Like when Supergirl caught me when I was pushed off my balcony.”  
“Ah,” Alex said. “What’d she say to you?”  
“That she was having coffee at ten pm on a weeknight, with Kara Danvers.”  
Alex hesitated, “Not a good lie.”  
“No. But you also helped make it apparent that Kara and Supergirl may be one in the same.”  
“I am an excellent liar,” Alex jutted the bottle of wine at Lena like an accusing finger.   
“I agree. Except you wanted to be a surgeon, and yet you work in the upper echelons of an organization that specializes in alien contact. I doubt you were recruited from medical school just because they could use more doctors.”  
“You’re half right. I was recruited from medical school.”  
“Okay, that’s a point, but that means they’d give you a lab and ask you to pour over samples. You carry a gun and use it better than almost anyone I’ve ever met.”  
Alex had no retort to that. “How does that indicate Kara could be Supergirl? Not that I’m saying she is.”  
“Of course.” Lena shrugged. “But the only reason I could figure that you’d be recruited to a tactical unit out of medical school was because you had incredibly personal interactions with an alien that was now posing as a human and that expertise could be put to use tactically.”  
Alex stared at Lena for a long moment, “You’re really smart.”  
It didn’t feel like a compliment but Alex ploughed on, “Keep up the façade, okay? Kara will come out to you when she’s ready. Don’t force her.”  
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Lena shook her head. “Why did this tangent begin?”  
“Oh! Right. My personal responsibility is to look after Kara.”  
“Kara can look after herself.”  
“Someone has to remind her that she’s human, too,” Alex said. “And to that end, if you break her heart, you answer to me, and to that end, the thing you’re thinking about, breaks her heart.”  
“She’ll get over it.”  
“I will flick your ear again, so help me.”  
“That’s not exactly a deterrent.” Lena said.   
“Woman,” Alex waved the corkscrew at her. “Don’t make me flick you.” It was said with humor but Lena didn’t feel it.   
“I mean it,” Lena said. “She’ll get over me.”  
“Not fucking likely,” Alex snapped. “Look,” Alex thumped the bottle down. “You mean more to her than she explains, okay? You’re not just her friend, you ground her in ways I never could. You’ve made her a kinder person for being around her.”  
“She’s already sunshine personified, how is that even possible?”  
“I’ve had the sunglasses to see past the glare of her goodness since I was fourteen. You understand what I’m saying?”  
“You saying it’s all a mask?”  
“I’m saying that Kara is different because of your proximity.”  
“Worse for wear? In more danger?”  
Alex dug the cork out of the bottle and lobbed it at Lena. “Don’t be dumb.”  
“Alex, I don’t want to be lectured to.”  
“Well I don’t want to go to your funeral, and I sure as shit don’t want to comfort my grieving sister.” She thought for a moment, “I don’t want to have to comfort my grieving sister.”  
“The world is better off if I’m not here!” Lena snapped. “I’m not doing this because I’m bored, okay?” tears streamed down her face and there was no holding the emotion back. “You’re a scientist, okay, there’s quantitative proof that dictates the world is a safer, better place if I’m not in it.”  
“Your data comes from a flawed source.” Alex said. “See? Already punching holes in your character model.”  
“You’re wrong.”  
“There’s a flaw in the collection system that misattributes a reduced value to the primary point of interest in the data set,” Alex continued. “And since you’re not accepting external references on the true value, it’d be best if you didn’t proceed along this line of calculation.”  
“I don’t want you to stop me, Alex.”  
“If you want to actually die, I can only delay you,” Alex said. “It’s not in my power to change your mind, I can only lock you up. Maybe force a confrontation. Maybe kill your family so that threat goes away.”  
“Your sister will hate you.”  
“Yeah but I’ll feel better and the math balances out. You remain in her life, and she and I will figure it out eventually.”  
Lena said nothing. It didn’t feel good that Alex dispatched this with such ease. It felt heavier than Alex made it seem.   
Lips trembling, eyes wet, Lena said, “I hurt, Alex. Every day I wake up dreading the news because every day I wake up to see some other way I’ve let down the world.”  
“Fuck the world, dude,” Alex almost knocked over the bottle, scrambled to catch it and pushed it aside so she could gesture without endangering the wine. “Really. I’ve already got one Atlas in the family and believe me the “weight of the world” routine gets really fucking old.”  
Lena said nothing.   
“You know what’s really wrong here?” Alex asked.   
“Yeah, I exist.”  
“No, that’s not it. The actual problem is you try to do it all by yourself.”  
Lena looked away. “Allies are in short supply.”  
“You’ve got her. And James. And Winn, and Sam, and even me. Sorta.”  
“You’re kind of antagonistic.”  
“Because you’re in love with my sister but your own dumbness makes you can’t have nice people intimately close to you.”  
“Are you always this brash?”  
“I’m drunk. And if you ask me about this conversation tomorrow, I will not only deny it I will pretend you don’t exist.”  
“Can we get to that point tonight.”  
“No.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because you’re not leaving until I’m absolutely certain you’re not going to go get yourself killed.”  
Lena did not respond.   
“What was your plan?”  
“I didn’t have one.”  
“Bullshit.” Alex said. “You’ve got four at least.”  
“Not really.” Lena said. “I didn’t want to be found.”  
“As in, no body ever recovered, or, no one has to stumble in unsuspecting to see you. No one has to find you and try to wake you up and has to deal with that heartbreak of seeing you either cut up or hung or with a hole in their head and praying their worst nightmare hasn’t come true and that you’re not actually dead?”  
Lena looked at her hands and said nothing.   
“That’s nightmare fuel for me and I don’t even care about you as much as some around you. How would Sam feel, to find you dead? Or Kara?” Alex choked up on that and looked away. Lena couldn’t look at her.   
“I can’t cope, Alex.”  
“Then we need to develop coping techniques.” Alex said. “But death isn’t coping.”  
“I don’t know what else to do. No matter what else I do, people get hurt around me. Innocent people.”  
Alex hesitated, and then spoke slowly, “It’s okay to be tired. It’s okay to need a rest. But quitting is untenable. If I can’t quit, neither can you.”  
“Do you want to?”  
“God yes,” Alex slumped. “Maggie was the first time I’d ever seen a chance to have a life beyond my sister and her shadow.”  
Lena looked up, surprised.   
“I love my sister,” Alex said. “I will move heaven, hell, and everything in between to protect her and defend her against her enemies, but I am tired.”  
“I can’t imagine how it feels.”  
Alex looked into her wine glass. “I had to grow up overnight. I went from fourteen to thirty in a day because Kara crashed on my parents’ farm.”  
“That sounds stressful.”  
“It is. And I can’t even explain to the new kid why I’m angry.”  
“Because she didn’t speak English.”   
“Not at first. She learned, obviously. And once she got a real understanding of the language and started talking to me, oh man, things got bad in a hurry.”  
“Why?”  
“Kara’s a child, she’s not much younger than me, and the last memory she has before she lands here is of her planet exploding. And she’s told to take care of her cousin, except she gets here and he’s all grown up and he dumps her with us. No by-your-leave, no attempt to help. Just leaves her. The only family she could count on being alive is grown and throws her away.”  
Lena stared at Alex. “Kara doesn’t understand why. She’s just got this pain, this insurmountable pain, and all she can do is smother it.”  
Lena wasn’t breathing. Alex looked away. “I wasn’t good to her when we were kids. I got better. I tried. But I wasn’t good. I wasn’t there for her the way I needed to be.”  
“I’m not sure you could’ve been.” Lena said, gently.   
“My point is,” Alex still hasn’t looked up. “Kara’s smile is supported by unfathomable grief. Don’t add to it, okay? I have zero doubts that your death would regress her right back to Krypton’s destruction.” Alex punctuated this by looking at Lena.   
Lena looked away and tried not to think about her own pain.   
“We all need help, Lena. And our biggest failing is trying to do it by ourselves.”  
“Where’d you learn that?” Lena asked.   
“Maggie,” Alex looked into her wine. “She, uh, she’s wise. Ya’ know? Got a lot of emotional knowledge and processes things in a really healthy way.” Her voice broke. “So she’s got this really clear awareness of her limits, you know? And, and, she knows how far she can grow and what’s insurmountable and what’s not and it’s not technically my fault but it is, because I want something she can’t bring herself to,” Lena crossed around the table and put her arms around Alex, and Alex collapsed against her. Lena was in no better state but she held onto Alex as fiercely as she could. Everyone hurts and sometimes it’s enough to just stand there and hold them.   
“I just wanted to get drunk, man,” Alex sobbed.   
“So did I,” Lena laughed, and they both coughed on their emotion.   
Lena heard footsteps and looked over to see Kara walk in from Alex’s bedroom. She wore sweat pants, a button down shirt that was undone, and underneath it, was the blue top to her uniform.   
The red S was a startling symbol, every time she saw it, and the way it was framed against the shirt that could conceal it, it was even more mesmerizing.   
“Hey Kara,” Alex wiped at her face. “So, I can get a third glass.”  
“I know you need your space but I couldn’t just listen to that.” Kara faced Lena. “Don’t you dare die on me! You give me hope, okay? I look up to you, and you’ve overcome so much, and, and, if you can’t overcome what your family did then how do I?” Kara was already emotional and Lena took a step towards her, but hesitated. “You’re my friend, and I care about you more than I know how to explain.”  
Lena looked over to Alex but Alex just rolled her eyes, picked up the bottle, and drank from it directly. She shuddered.   
“And you,” Kara turned to Alex. “I’m sorry Kal-El dumped me with you. You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry. I wish I could change things.”  
Alex shook her head. “I don’t.”  
“But—“  
“Don’t beat yourself up, Kara,” Alex whispered. “Not tonight.”  
The three of them stood there, squared off against each other, overwhelmed by their personal pain and no closer to a solution.   
“What do we do now?” Lena asked.   
“I can’t live without you both,” Kara said, bar none. “I refuse to live without you both.”  
“I’m,” Lena sighed. “I’m not going anywhere.”  
“Are you saying that because I want to hear it?”  
“No,” Lena shook her head. “It just feels like sometimes your ability to see the best in people is misguided.   
“I choose to see the best in people but I’m not a fool, Lena. I know that sometimes there’s no redeeming them. But you’re not Lillian, and you’re more worthy of forgiveness than anyone I’ve met. No one’s trying harder to atone for your family’s sins. No one deserves a break more than you do.”  
Lena said nothing.   
“I’m sorry about Maggie,” Kara faced Alex. “I don’t know what else to say?”  
Alex cried silently, gritted her teeth and shrugged. “I don’t either.” She finally said. “Because the platitudes piss me off.”  
“There’s more fish in the sea?” Lena asked.   
“Yeah,” Alex rolled her eyes violently and started to pace. “What a stupid phrase! So what if there are more options, I don’t want more options, I want her, but I can’t have her because she knows what her limits are and I want something she can’t cope with. And I can’t force her into wanting that and trying makes me a terrible person but I want to try, I wonder if there was some magical circumstance that’d make her change her mind and that’s unreasonable and unrealistic but it’s all I can hold onto right now.” All this she said while she paced and cried until Kara caught her, and wrapped her arms around her neck, and held her tight while Alex shook against Kara.   
Lena looked at her feet. She should leave. This was the sister’s time now and she didn’t want to intrude. She’d done enough damage for one night.   
“Don’t go,” Kara said. “Please?”  
“You need space with your sister.”  
“Where you think you’re going?” Alex turned, “If I’m gonna be miserable then so are you, cuz I’m not gonna be miserable alone.”  
Lena laughed at that, despite herself. “Maybe that’s a solution.”   
“What is?” Kara asked.   
“Miserable together?” Alex asked. “Really?”  
“Well,” Lena looked at the wine. “I no longer want to kill myself. And we all need support of some kind.”  
“Some more than others,” Alex nudged her sister but it was playful, deflective. Kara didn’t move and only gave her the stink eye in return.   
“What are you suggesting?” Kara asked.  
“We all do need help,” Lena said. “I know I do. I can’t cope with this, and your sister had a good point in saying that trying to do it alone is what got me into this particular mess.”  
“So?”  
“So what if we help each other?”  
Alex didn’t make a joke and Kara looked back and forth between Lena and Alex. “In what way?”  
“Listen? Movie nights? Real hugs? I don’t know, okay, it’s not like I have a model for a healthy family dynamic to work off of.”  
“That’s fair,” Alex said. “Is there a therapist that’d listen to us without thinking we’re immediately insane?”  
“I can ask J’onn,” Kara said. “He might know.”  
“Yeah, maybe.” Alex shrugged. “I’m going to bed.”  
She walked away.   
“Is she okay?” Lena asked.   
“Not really, but she gets to a point where she can’t process anything else and so she just shuts down until she can.”  
“I wish I could do that.”  
“I’d fly into the upper atmosphere and scream until I pass out and then fall back to earth.”  
“Yeah I trip on flat ground.” Lena said.   
Kara smiled. She crossed the gulf to Lena and opened her arms.   
Lena let herself be held for a moment, and as she relaxed against Kara, realized that was all she wanted all along.   
“I can’t ask you to hold me up, too,” Lena whispered.   
“This isn’t taxing,” Kara whispered. “I want to help you.”  
Without sitting up, Lena said, “I want to be able to be weak sometimes and not get hurt. But I can’t, I have to keep my guard up all the time.”  
Kara ran a hand through Lena’s hair. “Not with me you don’t.”  
“Can I ask you for that favor though?” Lena looked up. “Will you let me be weak with you?”  
Kara brushed her thumb over Lena’s cheek. “Of course. It’s easier to protect you when you’re in my arms.” Kara smiled.   
Lena relaxed against Kara, and Kara picked her up gently, and carried her to the couch. They reclined there, and Kara draped Lena against her so that Kara could hold her tight and let Lena be small and soft for a little while.   
Lena had her hands tucked up under her chin, and Kara toyed idly with Lena’s hair.   
Lena felt safe. She felt cared for, she felt protected and nurtured and it was so new she almost wanted to cry again. It overwhelmed her how satisfying it was to feel protected. Not just defended, but in a position where she was genuinely safe.   
“I didn’t mean to out you,” Lena traced her finger carefully over the symbol on Kara’s chest.   
“I honestly thought I’d done a great job hiding that.”  
“Oh honey,” Lena looked up. “You’re an awful liar.”  
“I am a brilliant liar, thank you very much.”  
“Okay, to me, in those circumstances, you were awful.”  
“That was by design,” Kara smiled, and leaned back.   
“Anyway,” Lena tucked herself into Kara’s embrace again. “It’s nice to meet you, Supergirl.”  
“It’s nice that I don’t have to hide from you anymore.” Kara said.   
“You don’t have to keep secrets from me,” Lena looked up. “And if you want to, some day, I’ll listen if you want to talk about Krypton.”  
Kara stiffened. Then she nodded.   
“I’ve never really talked about it. Or grieved properly.”  
“I’m sorry for that,” Lena said. “I mean it.”  
Kara shrugged. “There wasn’t time, growing up.”  
“I get that.”  
“But yeah,” She put her arms back around Lena’s torso. “I’ll talk about it someday.”  
“I’ll be here to listen when you do.”  
“Hmm,” Kara said, and relaxed. Lena sank into Kara, and dozed off to sleep, finally at peace. 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> if you wanna come yell at me about this, my tumblr is @thejollywriter.


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